Kids have an amazing ability to turn anything into a toy and play with it. That includes child’s play with food. Here are some okay ways to go bananas. While we wish kids would eat food instead of play with it, there are some activities where playing with food is quite acceptable.
The well-known children’s singer, Raffi, has a silly song called Banana Phone. We were in the audience for one of his concerts where he used a real banana and pretended to have a conversation. Funny and silly, Raffi sings that the phone has appeal (a peel) and it’s not a phony baloney. For adults, he picked up a bunch of bananas and called it “a conference call.” As you can predict, when we got home, Big Sister picked up a banana and pretended it was a phone. Now, much of the time, bananas are called ring-rings, from the line in the song “Ring, ring, ring, ring, banana phone. Her favorite sandwich is peanut butter and ring-rings.
This sort of silliness has an unexpected purpose. Using one object to be another is called symbolic play. Symbolic thinking is a skill used for language—words are sound symbols. Reading is another way we use symbols, this time squiggles and lines mean real things. Much of pretend play is symbolic.
How about some science fun with food? An easy and simple science experiment is to check if fruit and vegetables will float. Run some warm water in a sink or large bowl. Line up some items like an apple, banana, grape, carrot, pepper, potato and others. The first step is to guess or predict what will happen. Once kids have said either float or sink, they can try one and see what happens. While adults start the play, kids soon make it their own. They will try things like turning the apple upside down or putting the grape on the apple. They might suggest other items to try or turn the banana into a boat for small plastic people.
Adults have definite ideas about what is work and what is play but to kids anything they want to do is play. Helping us cook is a special way to play to food. Kids can slice bananas and grapes for fruit salad. They can measure, add ingredients, and stir when baking. We went to a pizza restaurant where balls of dough are handed out to kids along with the menus.
For a play-of-the-day, is there a way you and your child can go bananas and play with food?